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Sunday, July 26, 2009

Tennessee Tried a type of Obama Healthcare

Real Clear Politics has an article showing a Tennessee attempt at health care that was very much like the Democrats would like us to have. Via the Strata-Sphere blog:

The genesis of TennCare has many parallels to the situation in which we find ourselves today. It was a public option plan designed to save money and expand coverage. In the early 1990s, Tennessee was facing rising costs in its Medicaid program. TennCare was designed to replace Medicaid with managed care and use the promised savings to expand coverage. By 1998, TennCare swelled to cover 1.2 million people. Private business dropped coverage for employees and forced them onto state rolls. By 2002 enrollment had swelled to 1.4 million people and forced Tennessee’s Governor to raise taxes and ultimately propose an entirely new state income tax to cover the unforeseen costs. Governor Bredesen was ultimately forced to dramatically restructure a program he has since called “a disaster”. By 2006 Bredesen had disenrolled nearly 200,000 people and slashed benefits.